Facebook is critical to our success and we could use your help. It will only take a few clicks on your device. But it would mean the world to us.
Here’s the link . Once there, hit the Follow button. Hit the Follow button again and choose Favorites. That’s it!
If you’d like to know why this is so important for us, you can read more about it here .
A woman ruffled some feathers with a tour of her $650 NYC micro apartment.
They say New York City is the City of Dreams. Young people all over the world flock to the city when they're ready to start chasing after their biggest ambitions. If you have a passion for theater, television, or the arts, there's no better place to be. Want to become a successful and prestigious stock broker, lawyer, or investment banker? It's all New York, baby. It's a city of immense opportunity and tough competition, but that's what makes it full of life and culture for those who choose to live there.
But all of that doesn't come cheap. The average rent in New York for even just a small, studio apartment is $3,264 per month. That buys you less than 500 square feet. And, even though it seems like you're really pinching pennies by living somewhere so cramped, that price tag is enormous! Even if you account for the higher-than-average salaries in New York.
Most young people just getting started in their careers can't afford that. Not to mention, the competition for good-quality apartments in New York is cutthroat. Still, people are desperate to live there by any means necessary, which has given rise to some really fascinating (and, in some cases, slightly horrifying) micro apartments.
In 2023, one woman went viral for showing off her New York micro apartment. It clocks in at just 80 square feet and cost her, at the time, a meager $650 per month.
If you like spending all your money on rent, New York is awesome! Giphy
YouTuber Caleb Simpson interviewed the woman, Alaina, for his channel that specializes in featuring interesting and unique living spaces. Alaina's apartment definitely qualifies, though technically the square footage is 80x150, because she's including the vertical space. Every square inch counts!
"So really it just feels like a walk-in closet," Simpson remarks upon entering through the front door.
Alaina shows Simpson around the apartment, which includes a tiny living room slash kitchen area with a mini-fridge, a small sink, and a small stove and microwave. In the main living area, she's placed a fold-out sofa of sorts. Alaina's makeup and pantry foods are all crammed into one small cabinet.
From there...well, there's not much left to see. But Alaina and Simpson check out the loft, which holds Alaina's bed and a little extra storage in the form of hooks where she hangs her bags and purses.
The apartment has no windows. There is a storage cupboard under the stairs, but it's hard to access.
"Every time I want to get something out, something else has to move," Alaina says.
As far as a bathroom, Alaina is lucky enough to have her very own private bathroom complete with shower! Many New York micro apartments feature communal or shared bathrooms, so the private bath is a plus for this tiny space. However, hers is located separate from her apartment, down the hall. And, you might be surprised to hear, it's extremely tiny.
Alaina admits she previously lived in a "luxury" apartment that cost over $3,000 per month, but she wanted to free up money to travel, which prompted her to downgrade.
Watch the whole tour here:
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Alaina says her tiny apartment was a "hot commodity" when she signed the lease, beating out tons of other prospective renters.
Commenters on the video, which has a staggering 24 million views, were more or less horrified at the conditions that New Yorkers were competing over:
"Firetrap . No exits , no windows with fresh air . Cooking with no air flow . Crazy this is even happening"
"I can't even breathe looking at this tiny apartment"
"'In a van, down by the river' has never sounded better."
"NYC should be ashamed and embarrassed to relegate people to live in this kind of space. Not only does it look uncomfortable / unhealty but It looks extremely dangerous. NYC should do better in providing affordable housing with decent square footage."
It's cool and scrappy that Alaina makes the pint-sized apartment work for her as she pursues her dream of living in New York City. We might find it claustrophobic, but the fact that multiple renters were fighting over this space really says a lot about the way our culture is moving.
Younger millennials and Gen Z are sick of chasing after the American Dream of the single-family home with a white picket fence and a golden retriever.
The City That Never Sleeps Giphy
It's hopelessly out of reach for many of them anyway due to skyrocketing housing prices and stagnant wages. So, they can work their fingers to the bone with multiple jobs and maybe afford a slightly better apartment, but still not be able to save enough for the future—or they could actually enjoy their life with the money they do have.
NBC News writes, "Several years out of Covid lockdowns, younger Americans’ outlays on things like travel, recreation and dining out have been outpacing their older peers’ even as the economy slows. As of last summer, the average Gen Zer or millennial was dropping over $400 a month on nonessentials, compared to about $250 for Gen Xers and less than $200 for baby boomers."
In another YouTube interview, Alaina admits to spending big money on her monthly gym membership: over $300 per month, to be exact. Commenters chastised her for having her priorities mixed up, but honestly, there's nothing backwards at all about wanting to relax at your gym's spa after a long day of work, or travel to the far ends of the world, versus spending all of your money on an OK-but-still-crappy apartment.
In an update in the YouTube video's caption, Simpson writes that Alaina chose not to renew her lease in the micro apartment after filming. But that doesn't mean she regrets her stay.
"It's an adventure," Alaina says. "People need a lot less than they think they need."
Dad shares brilliant bedtime trick that helped toddler's bedtime routine.
Putting kids to bed at night can quickly turn into a circus, and all parents know that sometimes you have to get a little creative when it comes to getting little ones to settle down and actually fall asleep.
In a Reddit subfoforum of dads, member TrashPandasAndPizza shared with fellow dads the epic bedtime trick that helped him: "We’ve been struggling since January with our 3-year-old’s bedtime routine dragging out for more than an hour. Last month it was over 90 minutes, with all the bargaining and pleading for 'one more (insert random activity)' before saying goodnight."
It was clearly not working...until he found a brilliant solution. "A menu changed all of that. We created a card and drew little icons in the pages to represent all the different activities he has ever requested at bedtime - song from the phone, songs sung by mom or dad, a game of hide and seek, a story, you name it," he wrote. "We left space to add more options as he gets older. We also included an option for if he wanted his bedroom door open or closed."
Ben Stiller Go To Bed GIF Giphy
He explained that the "menu" had truly changed bedtime from a nightmare into a manageable situation. "Now, he chooses 3 activities and the door option, and that’s it. No fuss," he shared. "We show him the menu if he forgets his options but otherwise we have been able to cut bedtime down to 15-20 min max. Fellow dads, hope this helps you."
Dads were ecstatic about the creative bedtime hack. "100% this. We just didn’t realize he needed the visual aid to 'remember' his choices and help limit the choices," one shared. Another also wrote, "Works with confused adults also, most of the time."
Another dad added, "'Make them believe it was their choice/idea'" was the first advise I got when I became a manger. Timeless advise in many ways." Some dads noted the strategy worked for them as well. "Yeah also my solution. Each day same bed time. Warn them you will set a timer. 5 minutes later timer goes off. We go to bed. No buts, no ifs. We go to bed."
Tired Good Night GIF by Disney Giphy
Other shared their bedtime tricks that worked for them. "We haven’t implemented the exact same solution, but in general pivoting the conversation from 'I need you to do this' to 'do you want to do A, B, or C' has really helped us. When my son gets the power of choice, he feels much more empowered within the overall process and things run smoother. This also applies to all sorts of things outside of bed time," one commented.
Another dad chimed in with, "Yeah, my toddler likes to cuddle before bed, if they are being fussy or energetic at bedtime I just ask, 'Do you want to go in the crib or cuddle on dad’s shoulder?' She chooses shoulder every time, but that means she’ll be in her bed within 5 minutes. Rarely fights it anymore. In my limited experience. Asking them what they want to do works better than telling them!"
Tired Baby GIF Giphy
Another shared his successful bedtime experience with storytelling: "We've had success with having him help tell his own bedtime story about what he will dream about. What animal will you dream about? Oh an elephant? And where will you be, The beach?!, and what will you do on the beach? Build sandcastles, that sounds great! You'll dream of building sandcastles on the beach with an elephant. OK, I love you, Good night, dream of that elephant at the beach. For whatever reason, him making choices in a prompted story works for us."
When did we decide everyone needed to have perfect teeth?
Beauty standards are weird. For the most part, we all agree that they are nonsense, yet so many of us also feel compelled by invisible forces to abide by them. There's a reason that beauty is a billion-dollar industry and why cosmetic surgery has been steadily on the rise.
However, there is a breaking point. When everyone's features start to look the same, the unique beauty of the individual gets lost. We're starting to see beauty "upgrades" become so ridiculously fake and uniform that those "ideal features" are losing their appeal. People are finding themselves yearning to see the very "flaws" and "imperfections" those procedures were designed to erase.
kylie jenner kardashian GIF Giphy
Case in point: natural teeth. Straight teeth have long been #smilegoals, but today's model chompers go far beyond standard orthodontia. In many cases, famous folks with money to burn are paying thousands of dollars per tooth for veneers that give them smiles that could not be more perfectly straight, white, and aligned. Impressive? Sure. Beautiful? Depends on who you ask.
A montage of older celebrity photos has people lamenting the veneer trend and longing for the days when people's smiles were unique and part of their individual beauty. Some of these folks definitely had braces and some whitening done, but their teeth were still their own. Others clearly embraced their gaps, chips, overlaps, and crookedness, and people are celebrating them for it.
The irony is that some of these people actually had what were considered "perfect" teeth at the time. Veneers really have skewed our perception of what's real and what's not, which is all the more reason for responses like this:
"I miss real people."
"Is it weird to miss regular looking people that were also just uniquely beautiful?"
"I really miss how human everyone looked."
"Real teeth give people's faces more character."
"Did you guys ever think we'd be here reminiscing about natural teeth?"
"Movies from the 90s/00s looked more realistic because hair and teeth and makeup weren't 'perfect.' People looked like people and unique and had their own sense of style."
"Gosh I miss normal faces. The homogenization of the filter botox filler iphone face is brutal and makes me feel so dysmorphic about my own when I'm just like a normal pretty girl."
"I feel like it's really important to let the young ones know that all of these people were considered good looking. They were the beauty standard. We weren't being dentally inclusive. The beauty standards just became more uncanny."
That really sums it up. Beauty standards as a social reality go back millennia—it's not like we just all of a sudden developed them. But they're always morphing based on all kinds of factors, and the current factors are creating a strangely homogenous look when people put all of those standards into practice. The result is that these "beautiful" faces become boring, fake, and yes, uncanny.
We're not meant to look like cartoon characters, and we're not all meant to look alike. We are human. We have unique features and imperfections. There's nothing wrong with wanting to look your best or to wanting change something that might be a distraction rather than a charming element of your physical appearance (looking at you, acne), but a lot of what people lament as flaws are really just part of their unique charm. The number of people gushing over Anna Paquin and Patricia Arquette's crooked teeth should be enough to ease any insecurities people have about their teeth. The reality is that what society's beauty standards deem unattractive are often very attractive to real people.
Maybe it's time we started celebrating the things real people find beautiful instead of going along with artificial, algorithm-created standards designed to feed our insecurities and line the pockets of folks who capitalize on them.
Retired psychology professor shares self esteem tips.
Achieving good self-esteem and self-worth can be a lifelong journey and, sometimes, the most encouraging advice can come from chance meetings with strangers.
In a Reddit subforum of people sharing how they lead more disciplined lives, member Fuzzy-Sun-951 shared a life-changing conversation he had with a retired psychology professor who "showed me what's holding me back from discipline." They explained that the meeting occurred on a park bench as they were sitting and scrolling on their phones.
"An older guy sat down next to me. He must have felt my bad mood because after a while he asked me: 'Rough day?' I ended up telling him how I've been unhappy at work, how it feels like everyone else my age is doing better, and how I just feel stuck in this cycle of self-doubt," they wrote. "Turns out the guy was a retired psychology professor who'd spent decades studying success patterns. What he told me completely changed how I think about myself."
Im Good Enough Nighty Night GIF by Saturday Night Live Giphy
The retired psychology professor shared evidence from a 20-year study that "showed kids with higher self-esteem end up earning more later, regardless of intelligence or background." They went on to share, "I wanted to oppose him, disclosing that I didn't grow up wit lucky circumstances that would allow me to develop self-esteem as a kid and teenager. But before I could mention that, he killed my self-pity with a single line haha: 'The beautiful thing about self-esteem is that it that it can be built at any age.'"
According to the retired psychology professor, this is due to the brain's "reticular activation system," which acts as a filter system about one's self-esteem. "It means that if deep down you believe success isn't for someone like you, your brain literally hides opportunities," they added.
For example: "You won't notice the networking chance, you won't see the business idea, you won't even apply for jobs you're qualified for because some part of you thinks 'that's not my place,'" they explained.
William Byron Netflix GIF by NASCAR Giphy
The information completely changed the OP's perspective on why they always failed with discipline. They added, "'People with higher self-worth have higher dopamine levels naturally.' More energy, focus, motivation, and therefore more discipline. They sabotage themselves less because they actually believe they deserve good things."
As a final gesture of encouragement, the professor added that all it takes is tiny changes, and not to feel overwhelmed. The Op continued to share that "he told me that all I need is to start with tiny things that are easy to do daily, like putting sunscreen on or drinking water when you wake up. This seems to work because your brain is constantly looking for evidence about who you are. Right now it might be collecting evidence that you're lazy or unsuccessful. Start giving it different evidence to work with."
The advice resonated with others struggling with self-esteem and discipline in the comments. "'If deep down you believe success isn't for someone like you, your brain literally hides opportunities.' Wow. That slaps like nothing I’ve come across in a while," one wrote. Another added, "wow, I need to talk with strangers more often."
you is kind the help GIF Giphy
Others also began sharing actions that have worked to improve their self-esteem. "One thing that I have been doing for years is making a list of '10 things I did good today'. I literally have a book filled with a page for every day filled with things that I was proud of. I have tried a lot of therapy read so many self-help books and… This is the only thing that has helped for me. It has literally forced me to look at the things I’m good at," one shared.
Another added, "Self esteem, like your professor said, is built by evidence that shows you are behaving in alignment with your beliefs about how You should behave. So the first step is seriously interrogating what exactly you believe about how you want to behave and who you want to be. Who is your higher self, your most actualized and fully expressed self. If you can get clear on that, all you have to do is start acting in alignment with your highest self, little by little. And again, as your buddy explained, the brain is constantly searching for evidence of who you are. When you see that who you are is evolving towards your highest self, confidence naturally seeps in and it is much easier to continue that process and get more aligned. I swear by this."
Another explained how lists also are helping them, sharing, "...every day in my journal, I have 4 short lists: 3 Things I am grateful for, 3 Goals for today, 3 Wins for today,1 thing I did today that scared me. It's such a small thing, takes maybe 5 minutes to do; a few minutes in the morning, and a few minutes at night, but it helps to rewire your brain to look for good things and the opportunities that come with them! Good luck out there. We're going to make it."
